Pointing, driveway...

27 March 2014

A few days turned into ten, but it was well worth the wait. Tom emailed us to say that he didn't want to send photos of lots of half-finished jobs and would wait until the barn was looking neat, demonstrating once again his pride in the project.


The digger guy has been on site to dig the drainage trench. He picked a nice day for it.

Apart from that little break in the weather, it's been a wet couple of weeks on site, which has provided a perfect opportunity to do the pointing...

... and the self-levelling flooring, which Tom says is much smoother.

PS. Has it changed inside?

In the end, Tom wasn't happy to leave the shutters with only one coat of paint, given the weather, so Gregg applied a second coat and the shutters are now up and doing their job of protecting those lovely windows. The colour looks a little pale to me, but maybe that's just the photos, and, as G points out, when they are shut, they don't make the room gloomy. Beautiful shutters, aren't they? 

The oak flooring is at the barn now, and acclimatising happily. It is scheduled to be laid in early April, before our arrival.

The little vertical iron bar has been fixed to the casement of the shower room window...

...and the geotextile membrane and gravel has been laid on the driveway and terrace. (The yellowish colour of the dust will wash away in time, revealing the white gravel.)

Forthcoming attraction: the stairs!

The old building continues to assert itself

17 March 2014

The shutters are going up, but not without hassle, because, in the nature of stone walls, nothing is flat or straight.

The digger has been and gone and the site is more or less cleared, ready for the driveway and terrace membrane and gravel.

The downstairs pointing will go ahead this week, I think, and Tom will organise stove flue/vent perforations later on down the track, once the stove has been delivered. This means that the messy pointing work can be done before the self-levelling floor compound is applied, and also before the stairs go in. Also, the pointing will help support the fragile stonework while they knock through the holes, and of course, doing things in this order means that they can achieve the exact positioning of the penetrations. Makes perfect sense.

Tom is heading off to the Lot Department this afternoon to collect the floorboards for the upstairs floor.

Charles has been in touch and estimates that he needs about three working weeks to complete his side of things. Apart from the hot water tank, which could go in any time now, he has to wait until first the upstairs flooring is down and then the screed is painted before he can hoist all his sails and get moving.

G and I are heading over to see the progress 17 April - 3 May... It's a pity that we can't stay in the barn, but we will stay nearby and make sure that we get under everyone's feet.

Next batch of photos expected today or tomorrow.